


Aware

by Diaphenia



Category: Archer (Cartoon)
Genre: Accidental Baby Acquisition, Babies, F/M, Gen, Yuletide
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-20
Updated: 2014-12-20
Packaged: 2018-03-02 09:24:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,891
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2807543
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Diaphenia/pseuds/Diaphenia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><em>“Oh, I think he just looked tiny compared to your massive hands. He’s middle-sized.”</em> </p><p>
  <em>“Middle-sized,” she said.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>“Right.”</em>
</p><p><em>“</em>Middle-sized.<em> Archer, have you ever even interacted with a baby before?”</em></p>
            </blockquote>





	Aware

**Author's Note:**

  * For [IrenaK](https://archiveofourown.org/users/IrenaK/gifts).



> IrenaK wanted Archer and Lana as parents, so I wrote _three times Lana sees Archer with a child, and one time she sees him with their child_
> 
> Thanks to throwingpens, for all that you do

“Lana,” Archer said. “Lana. LANA.”

“What!” Lana said through clenched teeth.

“Look out!”

She pulled her MP 40 back out, aiming it directly at the pile of dead Germans. There was something moving, and it might just be someone choking on their own blood, but Lana still cocked her gun anyway.

She didn’t see anything. “It’s just a bunch of stiffs, will you stop being so paranoid?”

“Oh really, Lana? Because rigor mortis takes at least two hours to set in, also _phrasing_ , also they’ve only been dead a few minutes.”

“It’s not like I went over there and checked anyone’s pulse, but if you want we can just go over there and make sure everyone’s good and dead so I can get out of here and take a shower.”

“What if it’s a trap?”

“What if you’re a paranoid drunk?”

“Something is _moving_ , I know it is,” he said, swinging up, gun at the ready.

She smacked her palm against her forehead. “So you think someone’s trying to trap us and you’re blowing our cover in case I’m wrong. Great.”

Just then, the pile of dead bodies did move, and she swung her gun straight at it just before she saw the tiny hand reach up.

Archer, having just seen movement, started shooting, and Lana’s heart just about stopped.

She shot at his gun.

“What the shit are you doing?” he yelled. “That one was my favorite.”

“There’s a _baby_ ,” she said, holstering the gun as she ran, looping her arms around the kid.

The baby— she thought it was a boy— was covered in blood, but a quick look made her pretty sure it was other’s people’s blood.

“What is that, a newborn?” Archer asked, creeping up to her like she had a live grenade.

“I don’t know,” she said, putting the baby on a table. She didn’t have anything to clean it up, and the warehouse was disgusting even by drug cartel standards. She hated to waste a sweater dress, but she grabbed the hem anyways.

“Oh, I think he just looked tiny compared to your massive hands. He’s middle-sized.”

“Middle-sized,” she said.

“Right.”

“ _Middle-sized._ Archer, have you ever even interacted with a baby before?”

He knelt down in the front of the baby.”I’m certainly aware of babies.”

“You don’t call them that. You say they’re, like, three to six months old.” Not that she was really sure, but that seemed like a reasonable guess.

“How would I know that? Most of my experience with these things is trying to prevent them.”

“Well, you can’t anal-sex your way out of this one,” she said, pleased with how much cleaner he was.

“So now what?” Archer asked. “We shoot it?”

“Archer!”

“Lana!”

“We can’t kill him.”

“We almost certainly killed his parents,” he said, waving his hands about the blood-soaked room. “So, what, drop this off at an orphanage on the way out of town, he grows up without love and affection, which will certainly stunt his growth emotionally—”

“You would know,” she muttered.

“And then when he turns eighteen he asks where his parents are, he finds out they were killed by the best spy in the world, Sterling Archer, who is settling down comfortably into my late thirties—”

“Ha!”

“And he’ll join the KGB and attack me, Sterling Archer, in my bed, killing what I can only assume will be my several companions and injuring me. And when will the violence end, Lana?”

“You want to kill a baby?”

“Don’t you think this kid’s got evil in him? It’s his birthright.”

She didn’t exactly clutch the kid to her bosom, but she did put a protective hand over him. “You think all people turn out exactly like their parents?”

“Duh. I mean, you’ve seen every family ever.”

“As much as this pains me to say this, you and your mother aren’t really that alike,” Lana said.

Archer furrowed his brow. “That’s... the nicest thing you’ve ever said to me.”

“Well, I mean, Malory has some good qualities—”

She was interrupted by a hail of gunfire from the west end of the building just as the lights went out.

“Get out of here, you’re unarmed!” she hissed, groping for her gun, shoving the kid at Archer. “And take him with you!”

***

“You can’t give him alcohol,” Lana said, swooping in and grabbing the martini glass from the wee baby Seamus’s hands.

“I’m his father,” Archer said.

“You’re really not,” she answered.

“I’m his father _spiritually_. And that means I have to train him up right. You don’t want him to grow up to be a comptroller.”

“Hey now,” Cyril said, head poked in from the doorway. “You know this place has paper-thin walls.”

“And you know we can’t have the wee baby Seamus turning out in any way to be like you,” Archer said, shutting the door in Cyril’s face.” Besides, it’s not actually a dirty martini. It’s just water and olives in a martini glass.”

Lana sniffed the glass before taking a tiny sip. It was water, a fact which shocked her, frankly.

“Gotta teach him the way to hold a drink.”

“You are a lunatic,” Lana answered, handing the drink glass back to the kid before she thought better of it.

“I’m a lunatic taking care of a baby,” he answered. “You’ll understand one day.”

“I am pretty sure I’ll never understand this,” she said. “Though I will say, you’re not doing as terrible a job as you could be.”

“Glad you feel that way. Will you be around in, say, the afternoon? I want to teach him to hit on wom— where are you going?”

***

She heard a scream, and she knew it would be easier to run in the opposite direction. Instead, she ran in the new waddling way she does, opening a door— Pam, destroying a punching bag— another— a sex dungeon. Three empty rooms. What appeared to be Krieger trying to recreate The Fly right here in Cherlene’s mansion.

But lucky door number seven is Archer with the ocelot. The animal is screaming, and Babou doesn’t look much better.

“I need boiling water and clean towels, stat!” Archer yelled. “And vodka. Just a shit ton of vodka. And KY.”

“Sounds like every night we spent together.” Lana said, looking at the gunk that seemed to be coming out of Babou. “What is going on?”

“Can’t you see she’s giving birth?”

“Don’t _you_ know that’s a male?”

“Lana, I know Babou is male. This is Babette. I went and got him a mate and now she’s pregnant and she’s giving birth and we need to boiling water if we’re going to deliver this kitten.”

She felt her head spin. “Of course you went out and got your buddy a girlfriend.”

“Whoa, they’re not exclusive until they’ve had the talk, that’s just common sense,” Archer said, delicately mopping at Babette’s muzzle with his tie. “Now, boiling water! Go!”

By the time she returned, Babette was crowning, or whatever the cat equivalent was. Lana had seen a lot of disgusting and twisted human wreckage of all sorts, but this was far more gross.

The kitten oozed out in a flurry of noise and discharge. Babette collapsed in exhaustion.

“You stupid cat! You’re supposed to be licking it,” Archer yelled.

“I think in your words, _that’s too tiring right now_ ,” Lana said, rubbing at hand gingerly over Babette, who seemed pretty done.

“Ha ha, why don’t you just joke while little Baberino dies?” He picked up the kitten carefully, using a towel, cleaning off the amniotic fluid. “I’m going to need you to cut the umbilical cord.”

“Nope.”

“Babette’s not doing it and I know you have a knife on you,” he said.

“I have three,” she said. She pulled out the one strapped to her thigh and looked down at the kitten, so sleepy but much cleaner looking.

“Come on, Lana.”

She reached over and to cut the cord. There was more resistance than she expected, and in that moment, she almost understood Archer’s upbringing.

Archer laid a towel down on the cold marble floor one-handed, then placed the kitten down. He— the kitten was definitely a dude— hesitantly crawled towards his mother, then started suckling.

Babette looked about as affectionate as a cat ever looked.

Lana sat back, exhausted.

Archer reached out to pet Babette, who repaid him by scratching the fuck out of his arm.

He just smiled. “Babou’s a father!”

***

“Archer, are— are you _crying_?” Lana asked.

“No, Lana, of course I’m not. I’m just emotionally moved by our daughter,” he said.

“She isn’t even doing anything. Literally, she is laying in her playpen doing nothing.”

“Like you’ve never cried. I’ve seen you cry because of things Abbie’s done.”

“Yes, but she’s actually doing nothing. And I can see you tearing up right this minute.”

“No, I’m not,” he said, turning his head, and he was so busted. She could see the tears right there in his tear duct.

“You think I can’t see what you’re doing?”

“Shut up.”

“Right,” she said, and she grabbed the camera she kept on the mantle. It was for cute things Abbie did, and now for pictures of Archer acting like an idiot. “Can’t wait to show these to Ray.”

“You can’t do that,” he said, swiping at the camera.

She held it behind her back.

“Like I’m going to just reach for that and then you end up in my arms and then in my bed. You’re a mother now.”

“What does that have to do with anything?” Lana asked, about ready to throw the camera at his head. After removing the film, of course.

“You can’t be constantly trying to get me out of my pants. I couldn’t possibly do the things I used to. You use those things to breastfeed, for godsakes.”

She couldn’t believe it. Archer was as horny as a teenager on Viagra, and he seriously expected her to believe that?

She took a step towards him, and he stared her down, before he peeked at her breasts. “Really. You’re telling me that if I told you, right this minute, that I would do anything— even that thing I wouldn’t do in Cabo— you would turn me down?”

He gulped. “You swore you would _never_ do that. You _swore_.”

“Changed my mind,” she said, sizing him up. “Go get the stuff, and let’s do this.”

He looked solemn for a moment before slipping and looking at her breasts _again_. “Lana, I absolutely want to do you, despite the rapid aging of your tits.”

She pumped her fists. “Ha! I knew you still wanted me, but bad.”

“Ha again, Lana,” he said, grabbing the camera she’d all but forgotten about. “I’m going to make sure those pictures never see the light of day, and yes, I acknowledge I can only destroy the film by exposing it to light. The irony is not lost on me.” He flipped the camera over, about to open the film

Then he looked over at Abbie, asleep.

Then back at the camera.

Then back at Abbie.

“Goddamnit,” he said, handing the camera back to Lana. “Try not to use them for some lame blackmail. ”

She laughed. Maybe one day she’d use these pictures to get _him_ to do the thing he’d refused to do in Brazil.


End file.
